Poll #1466184
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 6

Do you believe in ghosts?

The real real real dissonance comes from realizing it's stupid to give up on anything when you're only twenty seven.

When you know it'll all end in ruin, but you still can't help but hope for the best.

Well, the good thing about twenty seven is that I'm at least old enough to realize when I'm about to make the same mistake twice. Though, god, wasn't it a fun one? At least it's a familiarity though. And yes, nothing's ever the same twice, blah blah. Dating your insubordinate is rarely a good idea though, no? And now I can at least take a certain amount of pride in seeing the error early on.

However: It was never a bad idea. Really, one of the better things ever. But tangential learning occurs though, experiments can never be fully duplicated, and now's a much worse idea. There's liking someone in a safe environment and keeping them as a wonderful friend, and there's getting a crush on someone in a shit storm of retail drama. I don't need to add to that. I can barely keep my head above water in Calabasas as it is, let alone release my own maelstrom.

I fucking miss Colma though, most times, really. I would trade it every day. There's being good with good people, and there's being good with lazy inane people, and the choice is obvious.

And I was never tempted at Colma, not till the end at least. And then, it was a certain bittersweet reflection of what may have been for a time, but the rationality stayed, The fucking rationality. So glad for it sometimes, but that night not as much. Then the doubts. Doubts for exclusion chosen, paths not taken, etc. It couldn't have been, no, but it may have been nice. I was shaken like I hadn't been for long while. Was the right decision made? Could I have seen it before the last night? Would I have acted differently if I'd acknowledged earlier? I doubt it. I know myself better than to think I would have done differently if I'd recognized it before. I'm colder than I appear, you should know. Fucking rationality. And even know it's unclear whom I'm exactly referring to.

Still, nice to reaffirm the impulse still exists. And they are quite lovely. I can appreciate and let it go this time. It's different. I can only assume the universe laughs.

Los Angeles is wonderful. I see it as a woman, stretched, languished. San Francisco was a frenetic gay man as a city. LA is resplendent, lolled. I enjoy ignoring celebrities and cursing their bad driving equally. I hold strong to my love of quirks and a general air of Run Downness, which helps combat a certain status anxiety inherent in the atmosphere. It may be the only way I'll thrive here, and for that I can thank to empty hipsters of the north. Yes, you look good, but in the five hours it took you to get ready I planted 8 herbs, zombie-patched my bedding, and talked to three separate furry things about their day. LA doesn't care. It likes you anyway, no matter what. Which is why I may like it more. Sa Francisco was far too much caring, all around.

Wild nights. Wild nights!
Were I with thee,
Wild nights should be
Our luxury!

Futile the winds
To a heart in port
Done with the compass
Done with the chart.

Rowing in Eden.
Ah, the sea.
Might I but moor
Tonight with thee!

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I love Los Angeles far more than I thought I would, having looked south and down upon it for so much of my life. Even with the heat, even with the fires. I bloom.

¡Estados Unidos!

I have shaped this now into some things I did not intend. The result is this:



Because I am self-indulgent and tend to nest. And dislike or think myself above many things, true or not. Weed has helped. Smoking a quarter of an ounce a week for two months has most certainly helped. I know, though. I just really didn't want to be a grownup again yet I think. Lazy haze. Or the other way. But now it's worked out that the venues I travel to cater to myself are obstacled just as I'm leaving town for a week. So we'll see. This makes it better:



As does finding out that a word I've hated forever actually means:

Verbage
/ver'b*j/ n. A deliberate misspelling and mispronunciation of verbiage that assimilates it to the word `garbage'. More pejorative than "verbiage".

and to clarify why I love it so:

ver·biage
Pronunciation:
\ˈvər-bē-ij also -bij\
1 : a profusion of words usually of little or obscure content.


I was talking with Barbie and Cynthia today, and they both thought that my previous oh-so-hated boss picked up the word from my current boss, whom I pretty much adore 82% of the time. I think Current knows what it means, I would kick a kitten if I thought Previous knew, which just makes the verbal venom that much sweeter. Idiot. Fucking idiot. Past Me and Current Me are happy and triumphant.

And it's just what... day four? Awesome. Because torture is actually wrong and abstinence-only programs have proven unsuccessful in preventing anyone to abstain from anything.


Obama orders Guantanamo closure.

US President Barack Obama has ordered the closure of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp as well as all overseas CIA detention centres for terror suspects. Signing the orders, Mr Obama said the US would continue to fight terror, but maintain "our values and our ideals".

He also ordered a review of military trials for terror suspects and a ban on harsh interrogation methods.
Continuing a flurry of announcements, he named his envoys to the Middle East, and to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

At Mr Obama's request, military judges have suspended several of the trials of suspects at Guantanamo so that the legal process can be reviewed.



Obama lifts ban on abortion funds.

US President Barack Obama has lifted a ban on federal funding for foreign family planning agencies that promote or give information about abortion. The US is one of the biggest supporters of family planning programmes globally, but former president George W Bush blocked funds for abortion services. Powerful anti-abortion groups in the US have criticised the lifting of the ban.

But aid agencies welcomed the move, saying it would promote women's health, especially in developing countries.
A White House spokesman said Mr Obama signed the executive order without asking for coverage by the media late on Friday afternoon.

The issue of abortion services remains controversial in the US, pitting pro-life conservative groups against more liberal, pro-choice Americans who back a woman's right to choose whether or not to have an abortion.

Dude. Bush at least has done damn fine shoe ducking reflexes.

I don't know about you, but I'll take threat of wildfire any day over Oh What? It's Below Twenty? Well Here's No Power and No Heat- Ha! because really, no thanks, and I think I would die in a puddle of melted coastal hubris and then wouldn't we all be sorry?

This will be my first Christmas not seeing my family, which is utterly bizarre and sometimes I feel pretty blasé about it and sometimes I listen to Christmas music and start crying, so who knows really. Bruce is sticking around though, which is incredible, so I'm going to a whiskey sleepover with some of Jessie's friends. Which will be funny but far better than the alternative of me languishing in bed stoned all day. And there's work, my last day off till Christmas being this next Monday because GOD do I like to bend over and take it, so I'm sure I won't be all that charming in the next week anyway. Christmas is weird now. Past presents, in the way that no one is ever past presents I don't care what you say but now we're broke and oh so frugal, more nog than egg generally, you've already figured out Santa's dirty little secrets, and all these weird silly grown up memories get attached along the way, like who you kissed when and the flight you took and that scummy traffic accident, etc. I suppose it strange to evolve between a glorified marker in the calendar. The thing I can't get out of my head is what my grandparents living room will look like without me in it. I'll be okay, stupors and friends and retail-workin' recovery are excellent distractions, but I'm concerned. 82 is a lot less pliable of an age than 26, as is 59 and 54. Anyway. Point being, I'm curious:

Poll #1314809 Soppy-tactular
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 4

Favorite Christmas song?

Second favorite Christmas song?

And the third?

The one that makes you want to rip your ear canal out with a claw hammer?

To be fair mine are:

1. Coventry Carol
2. Riu Riu Chiu
3. Carol of the Bells


Which are all kind of bloody (rabid wolves and killing babies) but if I hear Suzy Snowflake one more time (thanks Michaels) the claw hammer is mine.

Until then we'll have to muddle through somehow...

Rogues are preferable to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
- Alexandre Dumas

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Work:attrition.

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December 2008
The year's most striking conjunction blazes on the 1st, an hour after sunset as Venus, Jupiter, and the Moon form a brilliant triangle, 15 degrees high up, in the southwest. The two planets stay reasonably close together for a few more nights. The Geminid meteors on the 13th are washed out by an exceptionally high, bright, and large Moon: The year's closest lunar approach happens five hours before the full Moon, on the 12th. Expect unusually strong tides. Meanwhile, Saturn starts to rise before midnight beginning at midmonth. The ringed planet hovers next to the Moon from midnight to dawn on the night of the 18th-19th. Winter begins with the solstice on the 21st at 7:04 a.m.

Know what's fucking inane? Being told in the same day, within five hours, that a) "I don't think you'll be terminated, but it may be a documentation" (which is just stupid "verbage" anyway) and b) I may be promoted. Maybe you'll be fired, maybe you'll make some more money, who really knows? Good luck out in the world little chicklet. Retail is retarded.

Hmm. Like butter wouldn't melt.

Favorite final 4-5 am thought? I have the OED: Fuck you.

Also: fighting or fucking, it's all kind of even.

And isn't it nice, that last eye flutter? Like sneezing or realizing in kindergarten that maybe yes, you really did want that nap.

Also nice: journalling like I'm thirteen. On paper. Remember paper? A direct result of not living with nor frequently seeing friends I don't get paid to see. A la work, not the whoring. But the internal landscape is gentrified and expanding and it's all mine mine mine.

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I have no pictures of the Halloween glory! Meghan and Vija must be solicited. On my behalf as well. Weight of camera and probability of me losing/breaking said camera vs. actually caring about pictures anymore. I remember. Nordin's bald head will shine in my memory for a very longlonglong time. Solicit we still shall. HA.

Sipping whiskey while listening to Billie and reading at whatever damn time you feel like, armed with the knowledge that it's your place and you could leave it anytime you want to without any fuss at all if you felt like it, but knowing that you won't because you have a blanket warming itself for you before you even almost want to go to bed: makes my world go round.

Faith in state? Not so much.